


Whazza Human? - 10% Beef, 23% Shadow, and 67% Teeth

by CookieCatSU



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Acceptance, Also an exploration of humanity, Exploration, How does it work?, Let's call this a Character Study, M/M, NO ONE KNOWS, Self-Doubt, Specifically of Habit's shadow form, and self-acceptance, what makes people human?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27243613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieCatSU/pseuds/CookieCatSU
Summary: Boris Habit used to be human. He used to be bright and shining and human, like everyone else.He isn't really sure what he is now. It's difficult to summarize exactly what he's become.A fic in which Dr. Habit is casually not human, and no one really questions it. Or; Habit gets the support he deserves.
Relationships: Kamal Bora/Dr. Boris Habit
Comments: 11
Kudos: 42





	Whazza Human? - 10% Beef, 23% Shadow, and 67% Teeth

Boris isn't really sure what he is. 

He thinks, if you'd asked him ten years ago, that he would have been able to state with the utmost confidence, that he was human. 100% flesh and bone, no artificial preservatives, all sinews and myocardium muscles, grade A beef never frozen… that sort of thing. _Human_. Dark green eyes and wobbly knees and insecurity. Human. With a missing tooth, and a bone to pick.

He's not sure when the change occurred, exactly, but he goes from human, to _sort_ of human _but kind_ of not. 

His eyes didn't glow orange like stage lights, when he was young, but they do now, and his body aches sometimes, the sort of ache that only really comes when one's bones have crumbled and disintegrated and dissolved into fine dust that rattles within the non-flesh, pseudo skin exterior keeping one raveled all together. Or at least, Boris assumes that's how it feels, that this awful crunching, _shifting_ he feels, once the sun lowers past the horizon and the moon surfaces, is representative of some drastic change (not normal, typical. People, humans, don't feel like their insides are melting, and their fingers don't faze into shadowy umbre nothingness from one joint to the next).

That's weird. At least, Dr. Habit's pretty certain it is.

Honestly... It's been such a long time since he's been normal, that he isn't sure anymore. What is it like to be just human, as opposed to the slightly left approximation he is?

Perhaps the concept of normal has changed? Perhaps, for all he knows, what it means to be human has changed?

Maybe everyone's like him, lost and confused and the tiniest bit scared, and accepting of reality because it's all they have.

He's all he has, so he decides it doesn't actually matter if he's human anymore. He's Boris. That's good enough.

* * *

"Hello, Mr. Birdy" Boris calls, grin wide and cheery. He brushes his fingers over the starling's wings, satisfied by the way it puffs up its feathers, shaking it's little head. He presses his cheek into his hand, 

"Chirpy, chirpy, pretty birdy, what gifties do yooou have for me tuday? A seedy, a flower?

"Предложение дружбы, my little chickie?"

No. It simply was not fate, apparently. The bird, tired of their little conversation, suddenly takes off in a flurry of feathers.

"Ack!" Boris stumbles back, legs getting all tangled up as he rushes to get _away_. 

The starling is coming right for his nose. He's being attacked! He ducks, and His foot catches on a pebble hidden in the grass, and then he's falling, and the sky is coming upward to meet him. He yelps, slams his eyes shut, and prepares for impact, scraped elbows and stinging pain.

Habit falls all the time (his mother oftens laments about how ridiculously clumsy he is), so he knows what it feels like. Nasty tumbles really hurt for a couple minutes immediately after, and then he usually ends up with a lingering scrape, all angry pink and tender when touched, against knobby green knees. Shorter falls usually don't leave any lingering injuries, but the skin still gets abraded and it _stings_.

His lower back slams against the ground, elbows jutting out to catch his fall, and he waits for the usual bloom of discomfort, but… it doesn't hurt. There isn't an ounce of pain. He feels the rocks digging into his skin, but the sensation is kinda half insubstantial, almost like little spears jutting in water. 

Something isn't right. He should be rolling over to curl around his bruised arms, little tears stinging the corner of his eye.

He opens his eyes, slowly, looking around. He is utterly mystified once he catches sight of his hands, extended out before him. They're pitch black, totally shrouded in shadow. He curls each finger, and is amazed to see the way the light just seeps into them, as if consumed by a black hole.

Woah.

He sits up, and his suddenly black hair falls in his face, obscuring his vision, kind of half melding with the rest of him, but also not. 

"Wowie… Cool" He exclaims, twirling his finger around-through-in a lock of hair, all buzzy-fuzzy half real, "Очень круто!"

* * *

"What are you?" He asks. It's not judgemental. Habit knows Kamal isn't going to jump up and start reaching for stakes and pitchforks and torches and such. It's just curiosity, because Kamal is a curious sort of guy. He likes to understand and dissect things, and dissect how things work until he understands them.

Habit shrugs. He's not too sure himself.

"I'm me" He says, and he hopes it's enough.

It has to be.

"So uh, is this something that happens nightly, or what?" Kamal asks with a snort.

Kamal still looks confused, but not afraid. He looks like he's grasping for straws, but he also looks willing to try to understand. He's willing to listen.

Habit's shoulders relax. He plops down on the floor, skin buzzing, and grins up at Kamal, mouth already opening to start explaining.

* * *

Habit is overjoyed to accept their second Habitician into their midst (his mind lingers over a few terms: visitor, patient, clients, but each of them is too impersonal. They all remind him of his time at the dental clinic, reminds him of molars and teeth and just how many can he pull out before they start crying? And he doesn't need to be thinking about that right now. Not yet).

Trevor stares at him, from the other side of the desk. His eyes are squinted. He scratches at his neck from under his woolen scarf, just watching, calculating.

Dr. Habit frowns in concern, "You are alone? Where is your mother or fath-?"

"You're a vampire, aren't you?" Trevor exclaims, like he's solved one of the many mysteries of the universe. When he receives no look of recognition he frowns, and says, "Wizard? Bogart?"

"What?"

Trevor's face brightens, and he jumps out of his chair, "Oh, you're a werewolf, like me!"

Habit's brow furrows, and he reaches for his go to, whenever a child begins to confuse him. 

"Lollipop?" He offers, with a lost little smile.

Trevor happily takes the treat, with a look of triumph.

When Trevor catches Habit lurking in the Carnival, near Martha, a couple weeks later, he doesn't even look surprised. There's a dawning look of recognition, like a lock clicking into place, and he snaps his fingers and laughs.

"Oh, you're a shadow creature. Shoulda known!" And a wide smile stretches across his face.

Habit is so caught off guard, he can't find words.

He's _really_ at a loss for what to do, when Trevor starts to bombard him with questions, voice bright with excitement and interest, as he rummages in his pockets for a notebook. He eventually settles for a small smile.

* * *

Kamal's brow furrows. He's staring very intently at the wall beside them. 

"Do you see that?"

He asks, hand at his chin, sounding rather dubious.

Habit turns to his assistant with a faint, Hmmm? 

His expression is warmly fond as he gazes down at Kamal, who's walking beside him.

Kamal points at the wall, and Habit finally turns to see what he's talking about, eyes squinted in question. He's rather shocked to see his sentient, traitor of a shadow, flitting around Kamal's own, rushing to catch up when Kamal's moves too far away, pressing their foreheads together, pressing its hands around the smaller shadow's shoulders. 

All of the things Habit so desperately wants to do.

"I do," Habit says quietly, mouth dry, face hot.

Habit's shadow even grabs Kamal's up in his arms at one point, spinning them both around.

"Good. So, I'm not going crazy" Kamal says, and he lets out an anxious breath, a nervous little giggle of laughter. Still, his hand twitches faintly, and his gaze is still glued to the wall.

"Is that uh, normal?" Kamal asks, and it's clear from the way he asks it that he remembers that Boris' definition of normal isn't quite… well, normal.

"Um. No" When Kamal looks concerned, Boris amends the statement, "It does sort of have a mind of its own"

Honestly, the oddest part was watching Kamal's shadow respond. That _never_ happened.

Boris wonders if that means something.

"Oh, okay" He says, and he doesn't pursue it any further because, eh, he's seen weirder from Habit. He can take this at face value, no problem.

* * *

Wallus avoids the building at night. It's creepy, that sort of creepy they try to simulate in horror movies, only it's real. Sometimes Wallus has to take the late shift, or work far into the night after a full day of work at the clinic… and those are the worst days by far.

He always feels like something, or someone, is watching him. Like there are eyes, piercing into the back of his skull. It's unnerving.

The halls are exceedingly dark. The lights stopped working that afternoon and no one had been by to fix 'em. Wallus wasn't a freaking electrician, so once they determined it wasn't because of a blown light bulb, there wasn't much he could do. They were, mostly, fine during the day. Nearly all the rooms had windows, beside the smallest operating rooms. Now it was midnight, though, so it was dark out and pitch black inside and Wallus was freaked out.

At least he has his flashlight.

He quietly rolls his mop and bucket into Dr. Habit's office.

He hears rustling. His heart beat shoots up. There's rusting coming from further in the office and, oh god, is that a pair of eyes?! He swears there's a pair of glowing orange eyes staring back at him.

He scrambles for his flashlight, finally gets it in his grip, and flashes the beam over the intruder.

There's a loud hiss, and huge, blown wide pupils constrict in seconds, becoming slit little pinpricks. Huge, black, nebulous hands press over the eyes, and they just vanish in a huge blob of black.

"Blin! Pls, turn that offf!" Comes a deep, rumbling whine, straight from the towering aparation's mouth, which glows cyan blue in the dark.

Wallus' eyes widen, and then he huffs.

"Boss?" It was just Habit. No face eating monsters or ghosts or demons. Relief washes over him, immediately followed by indignation. "Why didn't you tell me that was you?! You scared me half to death!"

"You scaired _me"_ Boris replies, pouting.

"Oh my god," Is Wallus' only reply, and then he returns back to his mop and bucket. 

A few minutes pass. Wallus is in the middle of squeezing the extra water out of his mop when he looks up at Boris, well, at what he can see of him, which is only a pair of glowing red eyes and an awkward smile. He can't see his limbs, since they just blend into the shadows engulfing the room, but he has the feeling he's fidgeting. He does that when he's nervous.

He's waiting for something. For what, Wallus has not a single clue.

He clicks his tongue in annoyance. "Well, don't just stand there. If you're going to be in here while I work, do something useful" And he tosses him a wet rag.

Boris catches it. Wallus sees it floating in mid air, instead of hitting the ground, so he's going to guess Habit has it in his hands.

Dr. Boris Habit grins at him, with a full set of glowing neon teeth, like that rag is a Nobel Peace Prize.

"Okie Dokie"

Wallus notices that the next time he stays late, there's a flash of orange, every so often, in the corner of his vision. He's also a lot less nervous.

No point in being afraid of the known, after all.

* * *

Habit's afraid he'll hurt her. He's afraid Putunia will look at him, and see nothing but a monster. He is a monster, just human enough to fake it (but what human inflicts such pain on others, who, other than a monster, does that?). 

They have a staring match in front of the kitchen counters. Putunia clutches the ratty, tattered stuffed rabbit in her hands, letting it drag on the floor, and Habit tries not to make any sudden movements, tries to blend into the dark clinging shadows cast by the cabinets hanging overhead.

"What are you doin'?" She asks, head tilting to the side. Her tone is almost bemused, in that way it always gets when she sees adults doing things she thinks are silly.

"Hiding" Habit admits, after a moment.

Her head tilts further to the side, "Why?" 

"I didn't want you to see me"

"Are we playing hide n' seek?" Putunia asks.

Habit shakes his head, "You auren't- don't think Imm scary?" 

"No" She says, with all the seriousness a child can muster. "You're a lot nicer now"

* * *

Kamal presses into Habit's side. Boris throws his arms around him, heaving him closer, cheek snuggled in his hair. Cuddles were still really nice, even in shadow form. They might even be nicer, because… and he can't explain this, but he feels so much closer to him. Interconnected, in a way that simply doesn't occur otherwise.

Kamal grabs onto his hand, tracing his palm.

"Does it hurt?" He asks softly.

"No, it does not" He pauses, and cups Kamal's cheek in his hands, "Does it hurt when I do this?"

"No. It's really nice, actually"

* * *

Flower Kid notices. 

They notice the shadowy figure, glaring down upon the entirety of the Habitat from Dr. Habit's mess of a tower. The good doctor himself hasn't bothered to make an appearance yet, but Flower Kid knows that's him, up there.

They've seen the teeth, glowing rotten rows of them.

 _"Shadow Beast. Doctor Habit"_ Flower Kid signs to Kamal, hand movements agitated and clipped.

Kamal nods, as if that isn't news at all, "Oh, yeah. I already knew"

Flower Kid frowns, _"We should do something, right?"_

"Oh uh… maybe. He's harmless, really" Kamal says, with a shake of his head, and it sounds like he really believes it.

He's hesitant.

Flower Kid thinks they understand. Kamal has never, necessarily, been a man of action.

Flower Kid doesn't believe. They do trust Kamal, though, and that's enough.

_"Okay. I'll take your word for it"_


End file.
